Conservative’s Reaction To Scientific Evidence Is Out Of The Dark Ages

Headline reads, “Top U.S. climate expert calls Conservatives ‘Neanderthal‘” and it is but one such headline and one has to wonder, what is up Canada? In an interview with Evan Solomon airing Saturday on CBC Radio’s The House, James Hansen defended his position that approving the proposed pipeline would be disastrous for the environment. The former NASA scientist criticized by Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver earlier this week for his views on the Keystone XL pipeline is responding by calling the Conservatives a desperate and “Neanderthal” government and this Canadian just happens to agree with him. Not that I think that we have anything to learn from the USA one of the most influential countries in the world whose actions are not always at par with its political rhetoric in anything with the exception of waging war for profit, but in this case I think that the criticism of the Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver by James Hansen is right on the money.

It is embarrassing to me to have high-ranking members of our government traveling around the world especially in the USA talking like they belong in the dark ages and that our country has evolved so little that we still see scientist as witches, charlatans, snake oil salesmen and women, not to be trusted and certainly not to be believed. It is a sad time in Canadian history indeed that we are being governed by a government that has taken a childish, immature and cynical approach to fact based environmental science and further more choses to criticize the leading scientific experts, call their findings false and offer no fact based scientific evidence of their own to the contrary, but instead talk of the importance of letting nothing get in the way of their top priority of balancing the budget, by 2015 and keeping Canada moving forward on their economic plan. The problem is that their ideology is not based in fact and it makes Canada a laughing-stock internationally, wee it once was a leader and a respect ally in the fight to save the environment.

This government is no longer , or more accurately has never been a government of the people, but as it policies and priorities show it is a government of the big banks and industry. This government has been very successful in terms of taking us as a country back to a time when land , water and air, were simply tools to make money and we did not know that what we were doing could not be reversed and science was not yet able to prove what it already knew about the irreversible damage we were doing to the environment when we engaged in practices such as clear cutting, strip mining and dumping of toxic waste, chemicals and other pollutants in our streams, rivers and oceans. There was a time long ago when a country could say that they did not believe that the over use of pesticides were not polluting our ground water ands killing off entire species, but to take this position today, is hypocritical, backward and shows a dangerous and foolhardy desire to return to the dark ages and to become what James Hansen refers to as, Canada being governed by, a desperate and “Neanderthal” government.

It has become increasingly obvious that since Harper and the Conservatives have come to power that consulting all sides of an issue is not important to them. Intelligent people know how important consulting with all stake holders is if you want to get a well-rounded idea of the facts that will enable you the insight to all of the pros and cons of a given idea, ideology, scientific study, or environmental impact assessment, but this is not a Harper priority. To not look like ill-informed jerks, we need to do more than say we are not as bad as the other guy, or keep repeating the same old smug lines about the opposition parties trying to cost Canadians thousands of jobs with the environmentalist ways and support of those trying to ruin a great economic boom for Canada by stopping the Keystone Pipeline deal. Remember it was under this government that we sold asbestos to other countries, even though asbestos use is illegal in this country due to the serious health risk to humans. It would seem that this government does not mind endangering the lives of others internationally as long as they can reach their zero deficit target.

Whether or not Harper and his crew are as heartless and arrogant as I think they are, I will admit is debatable and up to every Canadian to decide for themselves, but that this government acts from a totally ideological position is obvious in my opinion. This government on all issues proves that it will not negotiate, is not open to amendments to its bills and is only willing to talk to business and financial institutions when looking for advice. With a voting control in all committees and in the senate as well, they have made a mockery out of the democratic process to the likes Canada has never seen before. When a government brings the discussion on bills to a minimum all of the time and only presents omnibus budget bills, in my opinion it is purposely making the opposition parties moot and all chances of changing anything they have decided on impossible; I maintain that this is not democracy this is dictatorship. If this is to become the norm every time a political party gets a majority government what is the difference between us and say Russia, China, Iran, except for the propaganda and political rhetoric that we are being fed to keep us grateful; to live in this broken form of democracy?

Food for thought:I read an article in Wikipedia, titled Criticism of democracythe following words that I feel explain where we are in Canada politically at this moment in time, because we are being governed by a government that is cynical when it comes to value of democracy outside of its citizens right to vote. I think that this government feels that Canadians are not capable of deciding what is good for them, let alone what is good for the country, because they are not political experts and can not see the big picture, or past their own personal needs. Finally I think that this government does not respect anything and sees citizens and opposition parties as an annoyance, to be ignored. There is so much more there to read about the highs and lows of democracy and I would encourage all to read the article in its entirety.

This is a simple form of appealing to the short-term interests of the voters. This tactic has been known to be heavily used in north and north-east region of Thailand. Another form is commonly called Pork barrel where local areas or political sectors are given special benefits but whose costs are spread among all taxpayers. Mere elections are just one aspect of the democratic process. Other tenets of democracy, like relative equality and freedom, are frequently absent in ostensibly democratic countries. Moreover, in many countries, democratic participation is less than 50% at times, and it can be argued that election of individual(s) instead of ideas disrupts democracy.”